


On a live wire right up off the street (you and I should meet)

by feyrelay



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Don't copy to another site, Gun Violence, Historical References, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Playlist, Retrospective, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, Уточнять у автора
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2019-10-17 15:31:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: Five times Tony Stark cried his eyes out (and one time they stayed dry).CNTW for the angsty conclusion (a soft end to a hard life).***I have never, will never, allow any reposting or translations of my works without my permission. All of my works will and shall only be hosted on my personal accounts on AO3 (feyrelay), Pillowfort (feyrelay).I no longer have a Tumblr.I do not have a Twitter account.I do not have a Wattpad account.Please Do Not Repost My Fics ANYWHERE, including but not limited to Goodreads, Ficbook.net, or Fanfics.me. If you would like to translate a work of mine or host a translation you may contact me to ASK about that, at feyrelayfiction@gmail.com. Уточнять у автора.





	1. 1979

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SbiderSlut (BlackCoffeeCat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCoffeeCat/gifts).



> The little mini playlist that goes along with this is here:
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/1urx036e5iqb0ioukr2bj8yih/playlist/3V2aTIT4i5BIFEwuSZDRN1?si=ftos8iRfQnOfQbUvPprB4w

 

1\. Message In A Bottle - The Police (1979)

 

It's the Monday before Thanksgiving. Tony Stark is nine (and a half) years old, exactly. His dad has taken this whole week off to take him and his mom to Italy.

He loves coming here because the Italians are so laid back, they don't care if an extremely precocious nine-year-old drives his V8 motorbike around the remote countryside. As long as he wears his helmet with the faceplate, he just looks like a midget when he makes the ride into town. Yeah, he got stopped once, last year, but he explained to  _la polizia_ that 1) he built the bike himself, 2) his IQ is over 200, thanks, and 3) he's an American on vacation, yeah, he's staying up in the Carbonell villa?

He doesn't mind dropping his mother's maiden name; the villa is hers, after all. It's not the same as saying 'Stark' to get what he wants. (It's not, it's not, it's  _not_.)

Anyway, he doesn't get stopped this time, which he's grateful for. His mother has been teaching him Italian from birth, and he speaks it almost as well as English. However, lately Dad's been pushing him to learn more and more and more languages, wanting to make him a record-breaking polyglot. French hadn't been enough, no. Nor Russian. Tony actually  _wants_ to learn Japanese and German, because that would give him a foot in most of the developed world's major language categories. Of course, anything Tony actually wants to learn makes his father apoplectic. Apparently, German was for Nazis and Japanese was 'Tojo talk', whatever the heck that means.

Regardless, he hopes his luck holds as he parks the bike and hops down, removing his helmet. He's been forgetting his Italian, you see. There's just so much crossover with French, which he's learned in the last year, and then Russian is its own thing entirely, and he's learnt metallurgy this year so he can build custom components for his robots and it's just a lot to hold in his head all the time. Sometimes he has to delete things, to make more room on his floppy disk.

Don't ask him why his mother's language has been marked for delete, instead of his father's stories about Captain America. (Or the way Dad's eyes go dim with disappointment whenever Tony screws the pooch.)

Mom's understanding about it, though, and she's trying to help him hold on. The basics are all still there, and she's been speaking it non-stop since they touched down here yesterday, to immerse him in the sound of the Italian language. He doesn't mind at all, especially when she sings and plays the piano and lets him lean his head on her shoulder. It means that she misses the really high notes because she can't move her arm properly with his weight against it, but Tony thinks the songs sound better that way. Gentler.

Tony makes it to the market safely and isn't stopped by anyone. Dad's sent him there for peaches, of all things, which Tony doesn't freakin'  _get_ because the villa  _has_ a peach orchard on the grounds, but apparently they aren't the right kind. His dad needs  _white_ peaches to go with the champagne, and their orchard has a different variety.

He guesses it doesn't matter since peaches aren't even in season, a fact which Mom had had to painstakingly explain to Dad before Tony had left on his errand. Howard had been drunk and belligerent, only mildly relenting and saying preserved peaches ("whole or quartered, and in their juice") would do in a pinch; initially he had simply been insisting that Tony procure the right kind of fruit for the fancy investors' party he was throwing the day of Thanksgiving, regardless of seasonal availability.

Oh, didn't he mention? Yes, Dad had explained his grand design; there's no Thanksgiving holiday in Italy, so throwing a Thanksgiving party was an easy way to get foreign investors into his home. The polite ones could find no good reason to turn down an invitation to a powerful man's observance of one of his own, cherished national holidays. The impolite ones came, too, to gawk at the ugly American, inflicting his culture on the rest of the world willy-nilly.

As long as they show up and bring their checkbooks, Dad doesn't care. Tony is decidedly _not_ invited.

Anyway, Tony is done scanning the stalls of the late-autumn farmer's market and there's very little fresh fruit of any kind, much less peaches. He does spy a stall that seems to be all homemade preserves in lovely little jars, so that's worth a shot. He asks for white peach (" _pesce bianco"_ ), and asks if they've been preserved in juice and how big the pieces are. The farmer's wife looks at him quizzically, but replies that she uses very little salt and that her preservation process results in a slightly sweet flavor, rather than a brine. He's never heard of brined peaches, but 'sweet' sounds like it will go with champagne so he buys several jars. The woman is kind enough to say she'll throw in a nice cloth bag for him to carry the heavy jars home in, since he bought so many. Tony nods, thanking her, distracted. The album cover of a new record is calling to him from the nearby newsstand. It pings and pulls all the strands of his thoughts together because the title is in some bastardized French/English hybrid; it's called 'Reggatta de Blanc' by The Police. However, the band is from the UK, and the irony of finding it here, in Italy of all places, strikes Tony right on the funny bone.

He absently takes the bag that the woman has loaded with his purchases and goes to buy the record.

Of course, he doesn't notice until it's far too late that he's bought nine jars of preserved whitefish, rather than white peach. Although whitefish is actually called  _il coregono_ , the farmer's wife (used to dealing with try-hard Americans butchering her language) had heard him literally say 'white fish' a.k.a.  _pesce bianco_ as opposed to 'white peach', or  _pesca bianca_. Any which way you sliced it (har har), he'd messed up the words.

Howard makes sure he'll never make  _that_ particular mistake again.

Tony listens to 'Message in a Bottle' on repeat for hours afterward, Koss headphones turned up to the loudest setting so he can't hear Maria and Howard arguing. He ignores the bruise forming on his cheekbone. He ignores the groove he's wearing in his brand new record. He ignores the tears doing the same to his face.

He ignores it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes:
> 
> -Tony built his own custom V8 motorbike engine by age 7, per Iron Man movies. 
> 
> -Maria Stark isn't canonically explicitly Italian, but her maiden name was Maria Collins Carbonell. What that means is she was likely 2nd generation Italian through her father. Collins was probably her mother's maiden name. 
> 
> -Yes, they had floppy disks back then.
> 
> -Koss headphones were THE headphones of the era.


	2. 1989

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references another one-shot of mine. It's not necessary for understanding, but if you want to read that one first it's [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17589854).

2\. I Want It All - Queen (1989)

 

It's July 4th, Independence Day, and Tony is the only American in Cape Town not celebrating it. He has two important things to do today. First of all, he's gonna punish his father for dragging him and his mother here in the middle of all the unrest by finding a cute African girl to bed. If he's very,  _very_ lucky he might even find a dude to bring with. It's not gay if it's a threesome, and Rhodey won't try it with him, and he's heard black men have  _huge_ -

"Where in the hell do you think you're going?" his father calls him up short.

"Wherever the  _fuck_ I want? I'm nineteen? College grad? Or did all that slip your mind in the haze of booze?" he needles back, not stopping in his movements. He's wearing a light jacket outside even though he knows he'll be burning up. It's just that he hates the gleam of his white skin under the midday sun; it'll draw too much attention, where he's headed.

His mom tuts from the sofa, where she's reading a newspaper, and says, "Don't raise your voice, Anthony, dear."

Howard turns to her, incredulous. "You're not going to say anything about the profanity? Or the  _disrespect_?"

Maria regards her husband over the top of the newspaper, and replies pointedly, "I know a lost cause when I see one."

Tony smirks and makes to go, but his dad catches his wrist in a bruising grip. "Son," he tries, pitching his voice low and serious, "I need you here today; I have a preliminary meeting about the main meeting tomorrow at Tuynhuys and I don't like leaving your mother alone with everything," and here Howard makes an expansive gesture apparently meant to encompass an entire kaleidoscope of racial tension and civil unrest, "...that's been going on."

Tony sighs, put-upon. "Alright. How long will you be gone? I can go out afterward."

"Hmmm, how nice. 'Why, yes! Mother, I would  _love_ to spend the day with you,' my only son says to me," Maria murmurs, voice light. She looks up and finishes her role-playing with, "Me too, dear. What a wonderful idea."

Howard smiles at his wife's antics, and Tony doesn't like how it changes the man's face into something recognizable. "Such a smart mouth on your mother, son. You'd better watch it. I'll be home by seven."

Maria rustles her newspaper before turning the page, and huffs, "I can be smart, too. You don't get to 270," she nods at Tony, referring to his IQ score, "without adding a couple of 135s together."

"Oh, is that how that works?" Tony returns airily, in the same breath that Howard offers, "Be glad you're not a geneticist, dear."

Maria just hums mildly and continues reading until Howard leaves for his briefing. As soon as he's left, however, she puts the newspaper aside. "You're not in trouble, but I do need to have a talk with you, young man."

Tony looks away from the TV, muting it, and scratches his left arm. "Ummm, yes?"

His mother shifts from her spot on the sofa and pulls a set of three magazines from behind the cushion she'd been leaning against. He recognizes them, with dawning horror. It's a set: one issue of  _Playguy_ , one issue of  _Blueboy_ , and the very first issue of a new gay magazine,  _OutWeek_. He'd been able to snag it in NYC before they'd all shipped out to South Africa and he hadn't had a chance to read it yet. The other two were more... broken in, though. He's fairly certain there are some pages that are permanently stuck together. Maria sets the three periodicals down delicately, on the coffee table.

He's sure he doesn't have to worry about his skin being too pale white, just now. It's likely beet red, from navel to nape. And his face,  _god._ (Flaming doesn't even begin to cover it.)

Tony doesn't know what to say (should he deny they're his?), but Maria speaks first, thankfully. "You can't keep bringing these into foreign countries, darling."

He stops fidgeting. "That's what you're mad about?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, Anthony; that's unsanitary. I'm not 'mad' about anything. I rarely am. However, surely you must be aware that the trips your father is most likely to bring us along on are the ones to the most... untidy... of countries? Last month in China, with the Tiananmen Square business, and now this apartheid problem? It's irrational, but when the powers that be demand your father be on hand to offer his opinions on... crowd control... well. I think your father feels the need to gather us to him like a mother duck and her ducklings, when his position is at its most dangerous. Try to understand, _mimmo._ You two are so alike."

Tony tries not to guffaw at the image of his father as a mother duck, but fails, not to mention the sentiment that he is _anything_ like Howard. His mother ignores him and soldiers on.

"These places he brings us to..." she says, trailing off before starting again. "You don't know how lucky you are to be an American, my son. Magazines like this either simply do not exist in these countries, usually, and if they do then they're illicit. You must be more careful. You understand this, yes? I don't want you getting hurt."

He looks at her, eyes soft. Tony breathes, "I understand,  _mamma_."

"Good," she says. "And on that note, I will keep these magazines safe away from your father's -- or anyone else's -- prying eyes. You'll get them back when we return to the US."

He groans good-naturedly. All things considered, Tony's just grateful she's not feeling her Catholic roots strongly enough to have him exorcised just because he's... curious... about men in addition to women.

"What are you complaining about, darling?" she asks, and her smile is angelic. "Your mother knows how to make a good trade. I have gifts."

He hums, mirroring her smile back to her as his eyebrows waggle. "Oh, you do, do you?"

His mom gets up and leaves the room briefly, presumably to retrieve something. He waits until she comes back with a box. It's white and patriotically festooned with blue and red ribbons that have a firework motif printed on them. The bursts of fireworks look somewhat like spiders. She must have thought to disguise the box as some sort of July 4th present, something she could play the ditzy housewife and doting mother over, in case Howard asked after it.

Inside are three items -- three trades -- to make up for the temporary loss of his magazines. There's a flannel shirt whose tag says it was 'Made in Czechoslovakia', as well as an album, and (embarrassingly) a box of rubbers.

She points at the prophylactics first. "Those are to help you if you _do_ find someone. You absolutely must use these; everyone is saying so. This GRID thing, or AIDS, or what have you-"

"I know, Mom. I know, okay? I promise."

Maria fixes Tony with an interminable look. "Keep your promises, dear. Parents should never outlive their children."

He nods and she continues, holding out the flannel shirt for him. "This is to help you catch someone, if no one shows interest at first. It must be hard, to be sure if the other one will be... receptive. But your Aunt Peggy says these plaids are 'the uniform' for the men who love men. She says she sees all the young men who were soldiers wearing them since the seventies, hoping to find someone to bunk up with now that there's no war. You'd look so nice with a handsome boy like that,  _polpetto_. You'll need to find someone strong and steadfast... a fighter."

He loves her so,  _so_ much. He goes to sit next to her on the couch and fold her into his arms. Her pearl necklace presses against his collarbone and the flannel is crushed between them in her arms, but it's still a perfect moment. Tony pictures her whispering conspiratorially with Peggy Carter at one of Dad's work functions and just.

He doesn't want to let her go. Not ever.

She pulls back to show him the last gift, though, which turns out to be the new Queen album. He'd wanted it for his birthday, but of course Howard had had his own ideas. Maria locks eyes with him and grins, looking girlish and young for just a moment. "Listen to this when you're lonely. This Queen band is good for big emotions like that, and to sing along. That Mercury fellow, he's... well. I think he's very handsome, though too young for me by far. And a bit old for you, eh,  _Antonio_?"

He grins back and quips, "A teenager, and a man in his forties?  _Tu sei pazza, mamma_ _!_ _"_

_\---_

Two years later, in 1991, that new magazine,  _OutWeek_ , has its last issue in June. It just doesn't rake in enough money to keep going. Tony feels its loss acutely.

A few months later, Freddie Mercury sings his last song, and Tony is devastated. He knows it was AIDS and he knows the deaths will keep coming, and that knowledge fills him up with a sadness so immense that he's not sure how to handle it. Tony doesn't believe there could be anything worse than this disease that ravages the gay community, a community who is already fighting a war on so many other fronts.

A few months after that, in December, he finds out he was dead wrong. There is always a greater sadness to be had.

Freddie sings the blues (or belts the anthems), pulling him down or holding him up, as many times as Tony needs him to. (It's never enough.)

The heroin and cocaine help, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes:
> 
> -Nelson Mandela was invited for a highly symbolic and highly unusual formal meeting with the then-President of South Africa on July 5th,1989. This was at the height of anti-apartheid sentiment (globally).
> 
> I'm implying that part of Howard's job is to consult on weaponry used to control the populace in destabilized countries. He is there as an ambassador of the US, serving US interests. 
> 
> Thus the reference to Tiananmen Square and those protests which spanned weeks. The famous photo of the man on front of the tanks was taken in June 1989.
> 
> -AIDS was a big topic around this time. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, died from it in the fall of 1991. Playguy, Blueboy, and Out Week were all real magazines, by the way. Before they were calling it AIDS, they were calling it GRID (gay-related immune deficiency), which is wildly inaccurate as many women and straight men died from AIDS as well and many continue to this day to live with HIV.
> 
> -Howard and Maria Stark died shortly thereafter, on December 16th.


	3. 1999

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark and RDJ are the same goddamned person. They merged in the Quantum Realm and that's why some things match and some things don't. Mandela effect.

3\. Larger Than Life - Backstreet Boys (1999)

 

It's Halloween and despite the expensive nature of his building and its ample soundproofing, Tony can still hear more than one party going on. There's one pounding through from the other side of his bedroom wall, and then the other one is either downstairs or upstairs. Next time, he'll get the penthouse. Or, possibly, just buy the whole building. He's tired of hearing about the goddamn Backstreet Boys and their goddamn fans.

He supposes, for now, this is what he gets for wanting to be in the middle of party central while his Malibu dream house gets built. It's easy to score, here, but hard to sleep.

Truthfully, Tony can't wait for all this new millennium bullshit to be over. The next thousand years won't be any different from the last. People are born, their parents fuck them up, people grow up and have their own kids thinking they'll be the ones to do it  _right_ this time (they're wrong), and then they die. The circle of life starts over again.

Somewhere in between, everybody fucks and fights and gets high and/or drunk, just to kill time. Oh, and there's usually a war going on. Between who? Does it matter? Your people, my people, our people. Whatever.

He takes another bump.

It won't matter. Tony hasn't slept properly, not restfully, since the NATO conflict in Yugoslavia months ago. He'd been called in as a consultant and he'd been too high to really understand that this wasn't the same thing as Bosnia in '95. By the time he'd finally understood that they intended to go through with the strike plans centered around his precision-guided missiles, regardless of what the UN had to say about it, well. It was too late.

Dad would've been proud. Maybe. ( _Christ_.)

Howard had believed the UN to be an incompetent bureaucracy on his good days; on bad days, they were part of the New World Order, just there to push individual agendas. "Agendas  _change_ ," he'd say, as if that wasn't a good thing sometimes.

Tony wishes _Howard's_ agenda had changed from time to time, to be honest. (God, he can smell for  _miles_ on this shit.)

And it's not like he doesn't  _get it_ , right? Like, he understands that Dad had been beholden to a much larger machine, powerless to control his own momentum (much less that of the behemoth itself). He understands because that's where Tony is now. You'd think being a playboy CEO with no parents, far too much inheritance, and Obie to do the heavy lifting... you'd think it would be a blast.

Instead, he's always pushing to take his next golden shit. It wears on him. (When will I be good enough?)

He bumps. (Again? Had he already, just-)

The truth is, Tony hasn't slept well this entire year. Before NATO, it was Columbine. He'd been caught on video doing the walk of shame on New Year's Day, 1999. Some dickhead  _paparazzo_ had gotten in his personal space and he'd mistaken the big, black camera for a big, black rocket launcher, too leftover-drunk from the night before to realize he was in NYC and not at a weapons demo in some turmoil-struck shithole.

He'd snatched Happy's piece from its holster, held it to the photographer's head, and said calmly, "Do you believe in God?"

The guy's partner, who was taking video, sold the film for the-devil-knows-how-much. It was everywhere. Apparently some kids had seen the footage of his stunt and it had filtered down into their damaged little teenaged brains and settled down in the muck with all the other bad shit, only to be regurgitated at the worst possible moment.

Fans, right? He had goddamned  _fans_. (His face is numb.)

Tony has a little book he keeps, with the names of all the dead kids from the school. He hasn't started adding names from Yugoslavia yet, afraid that once he starts he won't be able to stop. The area is still destabilized.

The world sure is going crazy. Too bad there's no overarching body of power to tell people 'no', you can't just bomb places to get shit done because you don't wanna try to work out your differences. Something above everything else, made up of multiple nations, to say things like 'throwing everything we've built away because one party is afraid to accept limitations is crazy'. There really ought to be a security council or something that ensures the sovereignty of nations isn't interfered with by some radical group that everyone is too afraid of to oppose.

 _Oh, wait,_ his coked-out brain says sarcastically. There is. And he was too gone to realize he was screwing them over, just like he was too gone on New Year's to see the difference between a petty invasion of privacy and a genuine threat.

This coming New Year's, Tony decides, he's shacking up and staying in. He'll let the chick ride him, since one thing he apparently does well is fuck up.

Bring it on, new millennium.

\---

The new millennium does.

In April of 2001, he celebrates the fact that Daddy's legacy has kept him from doing more than six months to a year in jail at any given time. The 20th is the two year anniversary of those kids at Columbine twisting his words and,  _fuck_ , his actions too-

Tony, fuck his probation, goes on a bender so wild that no one catches up to him until four days later, while he's wandering barefoot in a back alley in  _Culver City_ of all places _._ He asks the poor, beleaguered cop if he's a fan, sings a few bars of 'Larger Than Life' at him lasciviously, etc etc. He does the full routine. It's not like he's never sucked cock before... for drugs, in jail, for fun, to forget, and now for his freedom. No biggie.

The arrest stands, but the closet case cop releases him with coke still burning through his veins. He'll deal with the fallout in a couple months.

In July, he gets sentenced to some pretty intense rehab instead of more jail time which is a goddamned blessing because prison is fucking  _boring_ and rehab will at least let him design gadgets. The only thing he loses is his CEO privileges, really, which temporarily go to Obie until he's clean and he doesn't think it's a big deal until one day he wants SI to buy this manufacturer of this component he needs for his little water filtration project and Obie tells him no, because 'we're a weapons company, not a water filter company'.

Well. Fuck. Now he's gotta get clean, for real.

August 10th, 2001 is his first full day of sobriety.

He hangs on through September of that year, even though he was  _there_ , on business. And there was smoke, and the bits of paper mixed with bits of people on the sidewalk, and the dust and ash; he can't stand the  _ash_ -

No one would have blamed him if he'd relapsed, but instead he just watches TV from his bathtub like the goddamn billionaire he is, watches the same footage over and over and over, until the water runs clear instead of grey. Until the tears stop.

(Do you believe in God?)

(Not anymore.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people are having a hard time with the history references, so here are the notes, y'all:
> 
> -In the summer of 1999, NATO performed its second major military bombing over a matter of weeks. The first was in Bosnia in 1995. However, unlike Bosnia, this second assault (which was in Yugoslavia) was NOT approved by the UN. Although there were some good reasons for it, it was also very sad and deadly and it decimated and destabilized the area for a loooong time. 
> 
> In this fic, Tony helped with the weaponry for both of those. Only problem was, he was too high the second time to be aware that the project he was working on was not approved by the UN. He feels guilty. 
> 
> -Columbine was a famous school shooting that happened on April 20th, 1999. It was before school shootings were common in the US. Some kids went around and shot a bunch of their classmates.
> 
> At some point, one of the shooters asked a girl if she believed in God. She said yes, and he was about to shoot her for it when he was distracted while reloading and walked away.
> 
> In the aftermath the story got a little jumbled. It was widely circulated that the girl who was asked about God was a different girl (Cassie Bernall), one who died. She became a symbol of martyrdom. The one who actually was asked (Valeen Schnurr) survived.
> 
> Strangely, the evangelical community refuses to believe that. Cassie became such a symbol that they won't accept the eyewitness version of events.
> 
> In this fic, Tony was caught drunk the morning after a NYE party (on Jan 1, 1999) and a photographer got in his face. He had an episode and was drunk and high and belligerent so he grabbed Happy's weapon and held it to the photographer's head and asked him if he believed in God, to scare him.
> 
> The video was widely circulated and I'm basically saying the Columbine kids saw it and twisted it because they were inspired by it. Tony feels guilty for that.
> 
> The whole thing is a metaphor for how, sometimes, the story that we tell ourselves about our actions or the actions of others is far more powerful than what really happened.
> 
> -September 11, 2001 should be familiar to most of you. If not, Google it. As an American who remembers it, it is impossible for me to describe to you how much that event BROKE the US. We are still broken from it.
> 
> -References to Tony's jail and rehab and drug stuff is lifted straight outta RDJ's life.


	4. 2009

4\. Use Somebody - Kings of Leon (2009)

Forty is approaching, faster and faster. Tony’s not a fan.

He thinks a lot about what his father had accomplished by age forty. Tony needs to keep track of these things, _needs to,_  because, well.

If he can’t be a good example, then he ought to be a terrible warning, at least. (That goes double for dear old dad.)

At least all the bombs Tony’s made have _mostly_ confined their destruction to non-civilian targets. (Right? Right. _Right?_... Right.)

He wonders when he’ll meet his Maria. He doesn’t want to emulate his parents’ relationship, not exactly, but it’s just that sometimes Tony wakes from nightmares of an alternate timeline, in parallel with this one-

It’s one where there was no Maria Stark, no calming influence, just him and his father.

A nightmare, indeed.

And, sure, times have changed. A man no longer strictly _needs_ a wife. The reverse is also true; women are no longer entirely optionless without a husband, and don’t need that presence in their lives, if they ever did.

Tony wonders what that means for him, in terms of what he has to offer.

(He should just get a pet, and be done with it.)

He gets an assistant, instead. Also, it’s possible that _he_ is _her_ pet.

Pepper is everything and nothing like his mother. They share a certain generosity, a certain performative politeness, and an appreciation for the arts. However, their methods couldn’t be more opposed. Tony’s mother had employed a variety of subtle tactics. She’d never nagged Howard about doing or not doing certain things, no. She’d simply guilted him into seeing how embarrassing such behavior could be, how hurtful to her. She’d withheld when she needed to, and given rewards in kind, in a gentle, steady arithmetic of love.

Tony. He. He may be a genius, but somehow he’s always questioned the simple proofs of his mother’s love. He thinks of it as a kind of emotional dyscalculia, and two twos never make four.

Pepper doesn’t bother showing her work -- she just loves him and he can’t figure how -- and he’s equal measures of appreciative and anxious about it. He can’t relax. He waits to see what she’ll ask for in return, and the anticipation is excruciating.

He fills the time trying not to goad her into filing that sexual harassment lawsuit that he really, truly would deserve. He remembers something about strawberries and does his damnedest.

He’s just grateful it wasn’t peaches. (Can’t stomach those; they always taste of fish and blood in his mouth.)

\---

As his birthday gets closer and closer, preparations for the nineteenth fall to Pepper. He tries to communicate the depth of his respect for her by explaining that he’s told her his secret, about his birthday, because he trusts her and not because he doesn’t want to plan a party for himself.

“Look, Ms. Potts, I know it’s weird. I know you were under the impression that my birthday was May 29th. So is everyone else. But it’s the 19th. Ask Happy, he’ll tell you.”

“Why would you-”

“Look, I didn’t do it, okay? Just one of the many edits Dad made. I’m sorry it puts extra work on you, but it is what it is,” he guts out, growing uncomfortable.

Pepper’s face shutters. She hates when he treats her like an employee. (But that’s what she _is,_  right?)

“It’s my pleasure, sir. No problem. Party for the nineteenth. Champagne and models,” she outlines tonelessly.

(In the back of Tony’s mind, his mother speaks, “You'll need to find someone strong and steadfast... a fighter.”)

“What, that’s it?” he tries to smile. “You’re not gonna fight me on the change to your timeline?”

She smiles that polite smile, the kind that’s flavorless. “My mother taught me to never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man, Mr. Stark. Will that be all?”

He tries not to snort, and just nods regally instead, not trusting his wayward mouth at the moment.

\---

On May 4th, 2009, Tony accepts the relentless _Star Wars_ jokes from Rhodey. They are two increasingly older men learning the language of texting, and of joking with letters instead of sounds. Just because Tony can _build_ a cell phone doesn’t mean he understands how someone thirty years younger than him might _use_ one.

But, it’s enough. It’s a kind of legacy, maybe, what he’s built.

And forty? Forty is _next_ year, and next year’s problem, he’s decided. Thirty-nine has a nice, round ring to it.

Maybe he’ll have given Pepper her own ring, by then. Maybe not. Happy’s been carrying it around for a year already, almost since the day Pepper came to work for him. Tony honestly doesn’t know what that says about him.

(He’d bought it while blacked out, anyway, in December.)

It had been just another acquisition. A precursor to a merger, even, if he wants to be cute about it.

Once he’s done ruminating (and pissing), he starts the day with hangover breakfast and the _New Yorker,_  because he’s a goddamned cliché. There’s an article there about the fifteen years since the Rwandan genocide. It turns his stomach, but if there’s anything Tony Stark can be counted upon to do, it’s punish himself.

He reads and reads about how they’re getting on, post-genocide. It takes him back to the nineties, to when he was still high as a kite and pumping out golden eggs for Obie to spit-shine like his life depended on it. (Like it still doesn’t.)

Tony reads about the _gacaca_ courts, too, about the particular brand of collective, culturally-mandated forgiveness that has held Rwanda together with naught but spit and hope. The only requirement made of the guilty, before they can be offered what many consider extreme levels of leniency, is that they tell the absolute and complete truth of their transgressions.

Tony adds champagne to his orange juice and wonders if he’d even be able to manage _that_ much.

That thought sets up a sort of acid burn in the back of his throat, long before he takes his first sip of the mimosa. He flips the page.

It’s a story on the anniversary of the Kent State massacre, thirty-nine years gone. Soldiers called in to mow down unarmed students. Might over matter.

(Story of his life.)

\---

The party itself is something to behold. Pepper really outdid herself, and after his fifth stiff drink, Tony tells her as much.

There’s a gold motif to the party, shining decorations everywhere he looks. True to Pepper’s sense of humor, he also can’t escape from numbers reminding him of exactly how old he’s turning; there are classy, understated 39s everywhere. (He’s officially three times a teenager.)

It’s that thought that sucks the bubbles from his brain, sobering him from the recently-downed champagne. Where did all his time go? It seems like it was only yesterday that he was young, with only challenges and dreams ahead.

Now, his biggest challenge is reconciling his past. He looks backward when he’s feeling brave, anymore, instead of ahead.

Tony’s struck all over again by how wide the world is, and how inevitably it spins at the bidding of time. He’d spent his morning reading about a bunch of kids getting gunned down two weeks before he was born. They’d been fighting for something, they’d spoken truth to power and died for it.

Now he’s older than they’ll ever be. _There’s something wrong about that,_  Tony thinks, as he looks down over the city, away from the throng of people there to celebrate him.

(And for what?)

He loves Pepper, he does. Tony knows she’s good and smart and beautiful and that she loves him exactly for who he is.

But -- as Groucho Marx once sent by wire -- Tony doesn’t really want to belong to any club who would have him as a member. He doesn’t know that he ought to marry any woman who would willingly marry him in the first place. Not as he is.

He’s not good enough, and so she’s not good enough, as unfair as that is. He could use somebody who challenges him, who hates him a little… a fighter. 

(Tony tells Happy to hold onto the ring.)

He’ll give it another ten years. If Tony tears up a little when it suddenly occurs to him that he might not make it that long, well. Who has to know?


End file.
